EXCLUSIVE: Brittany Cartwright Reveals She Had To Be ‘Lifted Up the Stairs’ of Her L.A. Home After Extreme ‘Mommy Makeover’ Surgery

“The Valley” star Brittany Cartwright is back on her feet after undergoing an extensive “mommy makeover” surgery—and she has now revealed that her road to recovery started with some very difficult and painful steps inside her Los Angeles home.

The 36-year-old Bravolebrity went under the knife in early October for a series of procedures that had her “feeling stronger (and lighter)" within days, and that saw her proudly showing off her recovery progress in a series of bandaged post-op selfies taken inside her bathroom.

In her most recent update, shared three weeks after her surgeries, Cartwright admitted to feeling "a little sore and swollen," but noted that she was getting better each and every day.

Yet, speaking to Realtor.com® as part of her partnership with Clorox, the mother of one, who hails from Kentucky, revealed that the first few days after the operation weren't filled with quite so much positivity as she grappled with the physical toll of undergoing such a serious procedure.

The reality TV star praised her Bravo co-stars Zack Wickham and Kristen Doute for being on-hand to help her navigate her home after she found herself unable to make it to her bedroom alone.

"Going up the stairs the first day was not easy, but Zack and Kristen were on both sides and, like, lifted me up the stairs, and we made it up there,” Cartwright revealed. “Luckily, I have such a support team.”

Beyond having two best friends—and co-stars—by her side to help her home from the hospital, Cartwright credited the familiarity of her personal bedroom for putting her at ease during the recovery process.

“I love my room,” she says. “My bedroom is amazing. I'm very grateful for it. It just felt good to be able to, like, recover in my own space.

“Even though I had to be helped out of the bed to go to the bathroom and everything else for the first couple days, it was just great to be able to do it in my bedroom where I feel so comfortable and [in] the space that I love.” 

Spending all that time recuperating inside her room got Cartwright thinking about changes she might want to make in the space once she’s fully recovered.

“I love the way my room looks, but I keep wondering if I should do a statement wallpaper,” she said.

“I’m even thinking [about] my bathroom that's connected, my en suite that's connected. Like, because we have a separate room for the restroom area, I kind of want to put up a very colorful, vibrant wallpaper in there.”

Cartwright already has a color in mind for the future upgrade that fits with the bathroom’s existing black and white palette.

“I’m really into emerald green right now because I love plants,” she added. “I really want to incorporate that because I love keeping everything white and neutral and clean, but I think the pops of emerald green [are] beautiful, so it’s something I'm thinking of.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Cartwright has edited her home’s aesthetic. When she split from Jax Taylor, with whom she shares 4-year-old son Cruz Cauchi, Cartwright cleared out the place of any nods to their five-year marriage. 

“I've changed out anything that had our names,” she revealed. “I’ve even got, like, a bourbon barrel top because I'm from Kentucky—I used to have one that said 'Jax and Brittany,' and now it says 'Cruz and Brittany.' I had everything changed out."

Even her backyard was not immune to the makeover, Cartwright explained. “I changed out my landscaping. I added a lot more roses and, like, really pretty girly things to make it my own."

While Cartwright has moved several times during her and Taylor’s ongoing divorce, she is now back in their former marital home, where she continues to make it her own as she starts a new chapter in her personal life.

“I still have my house that was on ‘The Valley’ for so long, but now it's mine,” Cartwright clarified. “I own it. It is mine, let's make that clear. I get asked that all the time.”

While fans of the show might still recognize the “modern farmhouse vibe” of her home, Cartwright continues to make modifications to her residence that support her health goals and life as a single mom.

“I changed out my gym and made it a very pretty girly gym,” she said. “I still want it to be a gym because as soon as I heal, I'm going back into the gym and really want to focus on my health because after you have a mommy makeover, it's very, very motivating.

“My son, Cruz, he has a playroom downstairs and I changed it into a sensory room. I bought a trampoline, I got the swings that hang from the ceiling, and different things that really mean a lot to him. Those are some of the things that I have done.”

Though Cruz has a dedicated play space, Cartwright admitted she spends a lot of time picking up after him throughout the house, so her collaboration with Clorox and the release of its new Crisp Lemon-scented disinfecting wipes couldn’t have come at a better time.

“I got a zoo,” she shared. “I have three dogs and a cat and a son, who is only 4 years old. So, you know, I have messes and spills all the time.

“Cruz sometimes spills his yogurt smoothies in the mornings or his orange juice, which is always very sticky if you don't clean them right away. So I always use the Clorox disinfecting wipes for that,” she added. 

“And then [my puppy] Dolly is new. She's only 5 months old right now. She's finally potty-trained, but she wasn't for a long time. So with my animals, I've used the wipes a lot to clean up that, and disinfect that, and make sure my house was clean. The Clorox disinfecting wipes are very much a hack because they help you clean and disinfect at the same time.”

Cartwright teamed up with fellow Bravo personality Heather Dubrow, star of “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” for the Clorox campaign, which has them testing out the new gentler scent in a kitchen that mimics Cartwright’s.

“It was a set, but it looked a lot like my house,” Cartwright explained. “It was a commercial, of course, but it was amazing to work with her and, you know, it was in the valley—It was actually a house in the valley, so that was great."

Yet, even though the commercial was filmed on a set, the scene isn’t far from Cartwright’s real life, as she considers herself to be “kind of a neat freak” who doesn’t allow messes to last long.

“The only thing I do messy is, like, if I come home from a vacation or a trip, I don't unpack my suitcase for a very long time,” she confessed. “But other than that, I clean up messes right away. I'm not going to let my son walk around with sticky feet and sticky fingers and, you know, countertops and all that stuff. Like, it needs to be wiped down immediately, so I'm very much that type of person.

“The scent matters to me,” she said. “I’m very much a clean person, and I always just want my house to smell great. So that's why I love this brand so much. I have always used Clorox disinfecting wipes, like, all the time in my real life.”

The care Cartwright uses to clean and maintain her home extends to how she decorates it as well. While most of the interior is “a lot of white walls” and “very neutral colors,” she’s chosen to accessorize the space with sentimental pictures that keep her connected to her family in Winchester, KY.

“I have a lot of photos from my farm back in Kentucky to bring that in to the house and everything,” she shared. 

“I have photos of my Pawpaw's old tractor that he used to use that's just out in the field with wildflowers growing around it.

“I have a photo of my barn in Kentucky, which was my Pawpaw’s barn,” she said about the barn that was featured on “Vanderpump Rules: Jax and Brittany Take Kentucky." “He passed away 10 years ago, like, right [when] I moved to L.A., so I have a huge photo of the barn blown up.”

The photographs of her family’s farm are even more valuable since two of the barns are no longer standing.

“[One] was torn down in a big storm not that long ago, and the other barn that my Pawpaw had was in a fire recently, so those photos are so amazing to me. Those are the most important photos that I have,” she revealed.

“The hay just caught on fire,” she added of the most recent disaster. “We have no idea exactly how it happened. 

“My mom was at church and had to come home and it was a whole thing, but we are trying to rebuild. All the animals made it and everybody's safe and, you know, that's what's most important at the end of the day.”

As Cartwright keeps tabs on her hometown from her abode in Southern California, she’s not ruling out a move back to the Bluegrass State in the future. But in the meantime, she’s committed to riding out the peaks and valleys of life in L.A.

“I’m just kind of seeing where life takes me,” she said. “It's going all over the place. Like, I never thought that I would be where I am right now. I never thought that me and Jax would be divorced and separated and all that stuff, but I feel like as long as I can support my son, this is where I need to be right now. 

“I love Kentucky. I love visiting, I don't know if I want to live there right now. Doesn't mean I wouldn't move home later in life, but I'm just waiting to see where life takes me.”